Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud

37. It should not be overlooked that his immediate predecessor, Galerius, had issued an edict of toleration in 311 on his deathbed. Many consider this, rather than the conversion of Constantine, the turning-point in religious history. Jones and Pennick, Op. cit., pages 64–65. In 311 the same man reported how the people of several cities had approached him to plead for a renewed persecution of the Christians. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, Op. cit., pages 612–613.

38. Jones and Pennick, Op. cit., page 65. Bauer, Op. cit., page 45, for the role of Julius Africanus and that of the early bishops. And see Moynahan, Op. cit., page 104, for Julius’ role in specifying holy sites, such as that for Noah’s Ark.

39. Turner, Op. cit., page 1054.

40. Ibid., page 1057. Moynahan, Op. cit., page 76, for the problems faced by Diocletian and Valerian.

41. Turner, Op. cit., page 1059.

42. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, Op. cit., pages 613–614. Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 91–93, for a vivid description of the battle of the Milvian bridge.

43. Jones and Pennick, Op. cit., pages 68–69.

44. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, Op. cit., pages 150–151.

45. Jones and Pennick, Op. cit., page 75.

46. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, Op. cit., page 670.

47. Armstrong, A History of God, Op. cit., page 147.

48. The number seven was chosen because that was the number of sub-leaders appointed by the Apostles in Jerusalem. Turner, Op. cit., pages 1070–1071.

49. Ibid., page 1075.

50. Ibid., page 1076.

51. However, he was forced to surrender church vessels and gold. Moynahan, Op. cit., page 154.

52. Turner, Op. cit., page 1080.

53. Ibid., and Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 129ff.

54. Turner, Op. cit., page 1080.

55. Monks were not allowed to wash and had to cover their heads at meals, because Pachomius thought that eating was ‘an unbecoming act’. Ibid. See Moynahan, Op. cit., page 133, for Pachomius and his method for the prevention of fraud.

56. Norman Cantor, The Civilisation of the Middle Ages, New York: HarperCollins, 1963/1993, page 149.

57. Ibid., page 149.

58. Turner, Op. cit., page 1095, and Moynahan, Op. cit., page 44 for early Christian writing.

59. Turner, Op. cit., page 1096.

60. Ibid., page 1097.

61. Ibid., page 1104. See Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 115–116, for the Montanist beliefs about diet.

62. The ‘Muratorian Fragment’, so called after its discoverer Muratori (1672–1750), was written at about this time and its layout suggests that Roman congregations had by then long regarded the canon as divinely inspired.

63. Turner, Op. cit., page 1112.

64. Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 56–57.

65. Armstrong, A History of God, Op. cit., page 113.

66. Ibid., page 118. See Moynahan, Op. cit., page 46, for Origen’s doubts about Paul’s authorship of ‘his’ epistles.

67. Turner, Op. cit., page 1114.

68. Ibid.

69. Barrow, Op. cit., page 364.

70. Colish, Op. cit., page 22.

71. St Augustine, Confessions, London: Penguin Books, 1961, introduction by R. S. Pine-Coffin, page 11. Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 144ff, for a vivid picture of the young man, with his hard-drinking father and his boisterousness.

72. He had a further weakness for being liked, a fault (as he saw it) which led him to rob an orchard as a boy and as an adult to admit to crimes he had not committed.

73. Colish, Op. cit., page 28.

74. Ibid. In his later book she carried this thinking further. In On Order, for example, he considers two types of evil – natural and moral. An example of a natural evil is an earthquake. It is evil because innocent people suffer. At the same time, however, earthquakes in the long run enhance the fertility of the soil, so they are also good. This is not so much an explanation as an explaining away: the residual Neo-platonist in Augustine was alive and well. Moral evil was more difficult, and he admitted as much. Some of it could be explained away – two examples he gives are sewers and prostitutes, both of which are evil in the short term, but both of which are needed in the wider scheme, to maintain order. But Augustine always had a problem with, for example, murder. He couldn’t explain that away, and he couldn’t explain why God allowed it. See Moynahan, Op. cit., page 149, for a discussion of Augustine’s idea of predestination.

75. Armstrong, A History of God, Op. cit., page 126.

76. Ibid., page 135.

77. Ibid., page 142.

78. Colish, Op. cit., page 29.

79. Ibid.

80. Armstrong, A History of God, Op. cit., pages 139ff.